Reds Hire Jay Bell as a Bench Coach

The Cincinnati Reds have hired Jay Bell away from the Pirates to be their bench coach, according to Ken Rosenthal.

https://twitter.com/Ken_Rosenthal/status/400096038482366464

Bell was the Pirates' hitting coach in 2013, his first year on the job. I was going to mention how he seemed to have struggled on the job, but after looking at the numbers the Pirates showed some improvements in 2013. Here is a look at the 2012/2013 numbers.

Stat - 2012 Ranking / 2013 Ranking

OPS - 25th / 17th

wOBA - 25th / 16th

wRC+ - 26th / 13th

Some of that could have been due to Starling Marte being on the team the entire season. They also had Jordy Mercer at shortstop for half a year, which was an improvement over Clint Barmes for the entire 2012 season. There were some players who struggled,...

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